


Clutter

by wallofglass



Category: Holby City
Genre: Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 10:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19439581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallofglass/pseuds/wallofglass
Summary: Self indulgent domestic AU where John and Henrik essentially adopt Oskar.  Although I think the real news here is that I managed to write a Holby fic without a single overwrought medical metaphor.





	Clutter

Henrik’s house had never been so full. If he was less surgically precise and more poetically minded he might have said that his heart had never been so full too, but he was Henrik, so he focused on the house and the two extra inhabitants who had moved in over the past two years.

***

John had moved in slowly, his clothes left on Henrik’s bedroom floor, then picked up, washed, and ironed and, when Henrik could think of nothing else to do with them, folded neatly and stashed in a drawer. The drawer had eventually filled and John’s clothes had insinuated themselves into the wardrobe, his shirts pressed between Henrik’s, his sweatpants and hoodies on the shelf with Henrik’s pyjamas.

Embarrassing airport crime novels and slim volumes of poetry had found their way onto Henrik’s bookshelves, along with the titles John had kept hidden as a student - Wilde and Woolf and Baldwin - worn soft with rereading. Henrik had let it get as far as John’s favourite wok, brought over to cook a specific fried rice dish and never taken away, before he confronted John. Or tried to confront him. Somehow it turned into him inviting John to stay permanently, which had lead to John gracefully, gratefully, getting on his knees and eventually leaving more clothes lying around for Henrik to fit into his wardrobe.

***

For almost a year they learned to navigate around each other. John fitting himself into the gaps in Henrik’s home life - gaps that Henrik had never seen before - bringing warmth and a little chaos into the cool blue and grey rooms, adding fiery spices to the cupboards and cheap, colourful shampoo to the shower rack.

Around half of John’s possessions seemed to come from airports, hotels, or the supermarket travel section. His toothbrush folded into a case, his shaving things were cheap and disposable, and the t-shirts he wore round the house were more plastic than cotton. He even had a stolen dressing gown with a Hilton stamp. Henrik switched that out first, tutting at John’s loose morals as he packaged it up, freshly laundered and addressed to the nearest Hilton - John had looked at him blankly when he asked which specific branch it had been lifted from. He draped a soft fleece dressing gown in a fetching navy over John’s shoulders the next night and received a shy kiss for it.

Metal razors in a leather case and a rechargeable electric toothbrush earned him bolder kisses and a pointed accusation that he was trying to make John into something he wasn’t, which was taken back when John slipped into a new cotton cashmere blend t-shirt. His moan of appreciation was a little over the top but he looked so handsome in the dark green that Henrik allowed it with an indulgent smile.

They settled into the push and pull routine, Henrik adopting some of John’s habits, like Netflix binges and music in the kitchen, and John discovering fabric conditioner and starch and fastidious new methods of tidying to make sure Henrik was still comfortable in his more cluttered house. They got a tv for the bedroom and a bonsai tree for the living room and John stopped looking like he was scared it was all going to be taken from him if he misbehaved and Henrik found the sharp pangs of aching tenderness he used to feel when he had John in his bed, in his arms, were replaced by a soft familiarity and a confidence that John would be there when he woke.

Then Oskar arrived.

***

Oskar’s moving in was as different from John’s as it was possible to be. He arrived immediately, all of his possessions, few as they were, dumped in the hallway. John was still avoiding Holby after his trial collapsed when Roxanna took him aside and gently informed him of Lazlo’s misdiagnosis, so he had no chance to meet Oskar before the boy turned up at the door, holding Henrik’s hand and blinking owlishly up at them both. But John was good with children, and good with Henrik when he was at his most helpless, so he took the initiative and began fitting Oskar’s possessions into the spare room. He knew in a abstract, unformed way that if there had been room for him, there would be room for someone as small and unobtrusive as Oskar.

It was John’s idea to leave both bedroom doors open that first night, so that Oskar, tiny in the spare double bed, could look out into Henrik and John’s room, could just see the foot of their bed in the hall light, and would know he was not alone. Lying quietly with John’s sleep-heavy breath against his neck, Henrik thought for the first time that this could work.

***

They bought children’s clothes, books, and toys, and a large moomin soft toy to make the bed feel less big, and to remind Oskar of his Scandinavian home. Tiny fruit flavoured yoghurts appeared in the fridge and they went through double the amount of juice boxes. Oskar got used to John faster than he got used to most things, and Henrik watched from behind his book as the two of them built towers from lego on the living room floor. John looked young and radiant, his hair fluffy on top from being towel dried, crying out in mock anguish when Oskar crashed a dinosaur into a tower and sent it tumbling down into pieces. Henrik tried not to wince as lego blocks scattered under the sofa, but when the game was done, John and Oskar tidied very seriously, crawling on the carpet until every piece was back in the box.

John squirmed with delight when Henrik thanked him for that with a kiss to the top of his head later.

***

Months passed, Oskar was enrolled at school, Henrik finally accepted that the walls of the house were thick enough that they could have sex without emotionally scarring him. John worked hard to make sure Henrik’s panic over emotional wounds was kept in check, often using himself as an example. At the very least stories from John’s childhood distracted Henrik from the present by getting him so worked up that he was ready to bring down governments to find and punish the people who had hurt John.

They had both lived with their wounds for so long, had learned to live in spite of them, to love the darkness in each other as much as the light. Henrik could be cold and cruel, shutting John out for days, denying him touches and ignoring his suffering. Now that the spare room was taken he forced John onto the sofa, not with words but with silence and distance that made being in bed with him too painful for John. But he always melted and apologised and spoiled John for days after.

John lashed out in anger, insulting Henrik’s work, his parenting, his mannerisms, and letting lingering jealousy over Roxanna spill out in cutting insults, self pity precisely crafted into a weapon. He accused Henrik of not loving him, of abandoning him, of only wanting him as an object of lust. He called himself pathetic, stupid, tearing his old research to shreds. His words were poison, designed to sound like he was insulting only himself so that Henrik was unable to argue back. He burnt out quickly though, sprinting furious laps of the park and then tiptoeing home to grovel.

They dealt with each other’s darker urges practically. After a long, serious conversation they chose a small patch of hidden skin where John was allowed to hurt himself, as long as he let Henrik treat him with anti-septic and bandages immediately afterwards, and they devised code words and gestures for Henrik to use when he was overwhelmed and overstimulated. Before, these controls had just been for them, but they were more necessary now that Oskar was there. They both still carried their wounds, but the most important thing now was making sure Oskar was as whole and unscarred as possible.

***

The day Henrik resigned from Holby to take up a less demanding teaching job at the University, he came home to find John sitting at his desk, with Oskar on his knee. Both of them were leaning forward, elbows on the table, chins in their hands, frowning at a spread of papers in front of them. Henrik’s heart did something complicated and medically suspicious as he watched his grandson turn to peak at John to make sure they were still doing the same thing.

He watched the way John’s body curled protectively around his grandson. The arms that pulled him close in the night shielding Oskar, holding him up, stopping him from falling. 

John’s body was beautiful. He had always know it; sharp hips and tight muscles, hard and compact, but always soft for Henrik, always willing. But Henrik had never seen John’s body as something protective, something parental. John was guiding Oskar’s hand now to cross a line of text out, saying something about his grandfather being an idiot and Henrik rolled his eyes and entered the room, shushing his fluttering heart as John and Oskar looked up at him and smiled, simultaneous and guilty.

***


End file.
